“It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste.”
Science and Man.
Fragments of Science, Vol. II (1879)
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John Tyndall 40
British scientist 1820–1893Related quotes

1940s, Response to the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
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“Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.”
Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 5 (p. 43)
Source: Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang, 1955, pp. 24-32

Attributed but thus far unverified

The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18835/18835-h/18835-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII.
1910s
Context: The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."